Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756, the son of the
violinist and composer, Leopold Mozart, a musician employed by the ruling
Archbishop, and a man of some intellectual ability. In childhood Mozart and his
elder sister Anna-Maria, known in the family as Nannerl to her brother's Wolferl,
toured Europe as infant prodigies, received at court in the countries they
visited and providing a general subject of curiosity and interest. The
children's education and musical training was supervised by their father, who
was quick to realise his son's genius and sacrificed his own career to foster
it.

As Mozart grew to manhood there was evident a disparity between his natural
expectations and the realities of provincial Salzburg, where an indulgent patron
had been succeeded by an Archbishop very much less willing to allow members of
his household to absent themselves for months or years on end. Leopold Mozart
had, perforce, to be content with his lot as Vice-Kapellmeister, but in 1777 his
son left Salzburg, accompanied only by his mother, to seek employment elsewhere,
in Munich, Mannheim or Paris, where, in June, 1778, his mother died. Nowhere did
there seem to be a position available in any way equal to what Mozart saw as his
desert, and early in 1779 he returned reluctantly to Salzburg, where he was
given a position once more, with equal reluctance, by the Archbishop.

The summer of 1780 brought a commission for an opera in Munich. Idomeneo,
re di Creta, was staged there with some success in January, 1781. There
followed a summons from the Archbishop to attend him in Vienna and an uneasy few
months in which the young composer grew increasingly resentful, irked by his
subservient position and the refusal of his patron to allow him to earn money
and honour by performing before the Emperor. In May there was an open quarrel,
resulting in Mozart's dismissal. For the remaining ten years of his life he was
to seek to earn a living in Vienna, independent of a patron, although he was
later to be given a relatively unimportant position at court.

The Vienna years, during which Leopold Mozart was no longer at hand to
control his son's wilder plans, brought initial success in the opera-house and
in the public concerts Mozart gave. His marriage to an impecunious girl, whose
earlier acquaintance he had made in Mannheim, when he had courted her sister,
did nothing to assist his career, and by the end of the decade he was often
depressed by the financial difficulties of the course he had chosen. He died in
1791, at a time when his fortunes seemed about to take a turn for the better.
Although he had been ignored by the new Emperor, he had, nevertheless, fulfilled
a coronation opera commission in Prague and was enjoying some popular success
with his new German opera The Magic Flute. The unfinished work he left
included a Requiem Mass, later completed by his pupil Süssmayer.

During the second half of the century the orchestral symphony, derived in
part from the Italian operatic overture of earlier years, assumed increasing
importance. Its most common instrumentation, calling for pairs of oboes and
French horns, with a four-part string section and possible keyboard continuo,
suited very well the resources most often available in the musical
establishments of ruling families and the nobility. The four-movement symphony,
including a Minuet and Trio generally as its third movement, opened with an
Allegro in the tripartite sonata- or sonata-allegro form of a two-subject
exposition, followed by a development and recapitulation. A contrasting slow
movement in a related key was often in ternary form, a central section framed by
a repeated opening section. The symphony might be expected to end in a form of
rondo, following the key-pattern expected in sonata-form and offering contrasted
episodes framed by a repetition of the principal theme.

Mozart's first attempts at the symphony were made during the fruitful and
extended concert-tour undertaken between June 1763 and November 1766. Late in
1769 Mozart left Salzburg with his father to visit Italy for the first time, and
there he enjoyed similar success, now being able to fulfil a commission for an
opera, Mitridate, rè di Ponto, which was performed in Milan on Boxing
Day, 1770. He completed his Symphony in D major, K.84, in July 1770, and
refers to the work in a postscript to one of his father's letters home on 4th
August from Bologna. The symphony seems to have been written in Milan and
Bologna, to the latter of which the Mozarts travelled after visiting Naples and
Rome. It is one of a group of three-movement works on the Italian pattern.
Scored for pairs of oboes and French horns, with strings, the first movement
starts with a lively first subject, leading to a gentler second subject
entrusted at first to the strings. The A major triple-time Andante opens with a
theme for the strings, then joined, in repetition, by the wind instruments,
material that frames a central section in the dominant key. The final Allegro
starts with an arpeggio figure in a movement where triplet figuration later
comes to predominate.

The Mozarts returned to Salzburg in March 1771 and here in July the young
composer completed the Symphony in G major, K.110. In four movements, it
is scored for the usual pairs of oboes and horns, with the strings joined by
flutes and bassoons in the slow movement. In the opening triple-time Allegro the
oboe doubles the violin in the first subject. After a second subject the
material is developed, at first by the strings, before the final recapitulation.
The C major Andante allows the strings the first statement of the principal
theme, joined by sustained notes from flutes and bassoons. Oboes and French
horns return for the third movement Menuetto with its contrasting E minor Trio
for strings only. The final rondo bases its principal and recurrent theme on the
notes of the arpeggio.

After five months in Salzburg, Mozart, accompanied by his father, returned
again to Italy, where his Serenata, Ascanio in Alba, was to be performed in
October for the wedding of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and Maria Beatrice
d'Este, a princess of Modena. His Symphony in F major, K.112, was
completed in Milan on 2nd November 1771. It is scored for pairs of oboes and
French horns, with strings. The first movement has a principal theme derived
from the descending notes of the arpeggio, gently answered. Less usually the
second subject is introduced by oboes and violas, answered by the violins. There
is the brief expected central development and recapitulation. The B flat major
Andante allows the first violin the principal theme, accompanied by broken
chords from the second violins and violas. The Menuetto frames a C major Trio
for strings and the symphony ends with a rondo.

In the middle of December 1771 father and son returned to Salzburg, where, on
30th December, Mozart completed his Symphony in A major, K.114. This is
scored for pairs of flutes, alternating with oboes, and French horns, with
strings, which start the first subject of the opening Allegro moderato,
continued with the whole orchestra, the flute an octave higher than the violins.
The strings begin the second subject and the exposition has a dramatic closing
section, before the development, where the flutes, in thirds, are answered by
the violas. The movement ends with a recapitulation. Oboes replace flutes in the
D major triple-time Andante, which is followed by a Minuet, framing an A minor
Trio for strings alone. The final Molto allegro is in tripartite sonata-form,
with a brief central development.

Northern Chamber Orchestra, Manchester
Formed in 1967, the Northern Chamber Orchestra has established itself as one of
England's finest chamber ensembles. Though often augmented to meet the
requirements of the concert programme, the orchestra normally contains 24
musicians and performs both in concert and on disc without a conductor. Their
repertoire ranges from the baroque era to music of our time, and they have
gained a reputation for imaginative programme planning.

Concerts take the orchestra throughout the North of England and it has
received four major European bursaries for its achievements in the community.
With a series of recordings of Haydn and Mozart symphonies for Naxos the
orchestra makes its debut on disc.

Nicholas Ward
Nicholas Ward was born in Manchester in 1952, the son of parents who had met as
members of the Hallé Orchestra. In consequence music played an important part
in his life from childhood, allowing him, after less successful attempts as a
pianist, to learn the violin and, at the age of twelve, to form his own string
quartet. This last continued for some five years, until he entered the Royal
Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he studied with Yossi Zivoni and
later, in Brussels, with André Gertler. In 1977 Nicholas Ward moved to London,
where he joined the Melos Ensemble and the Royal Philharmonic, when the
orchestra worked under Antal Dorati as its Principal Conductor. He became
co-leader of the City of London Sinfonia in 1984, a position followed by
appointment as leader of the Northern Chamber Orchestra, of which he became
Music Director two years later, directing from the violin. In this form the
orchestra has won high regard for its work both in the concert hall and the
broadcasting studio.

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